I Never Had a Job Because I Never Wanted One

"Let’s imagine all of our reforms are enacted. Even with guaranteed paid leave, universal and high-quality childcare, and other reforms that improve the workplace for women, even if all women who were willing and able flooded into the labor force, could we say that we had truly liberated women under the capitalist system?

Capitalism, after all, does not ascribe value for the work that gets done inside the home. In pre-capitalist societies, women were certainly subjugated and oppressed, but because all work was done to sustain the lives of the people who did it, plowing a field or baking a loaf of bread were equally essential. Under capitalism, work done outside the home can be sold for wages to capital; work done inside the home can’t create more capital for the capitalists."

- Bryce Covert, Is There Room for Women Workers Under Capitalism? , The Nation